Ousmane Sembène

The Realizer Senegal board Ousmane Sembène (born on January 1st 1923 with Ziguinchor, Senegal, dead the June 9th 2007 with Dakar, Senegal), is regarded as the father of the African cinema. It was also Acteur, Scénariste, writer and especially been obstinated militant, building his work multiform on its political commitment and social.

Biography

Ousmane Sembène was born on January 1st, 1923 with Ziguinchor, a city of the Casamance. As from 7 years, he attends the Koranic school and the French school, learning at the same time the French and the Arab , whereas its native tongue is the wolof.

In 1942, it is mobilized by the French Army and integrates the Senegalese riflemen.

In 1946, it embarks clandestinely for France and unloads with Marseilles, where it will live various small work. It will be in particular Docker with the wearing of Marseilles. It adheres to the CGT and the French Communist party. It militates against the war in Indo-China and for the independence of the Algérie.

In 1956, it publishes its first novel, the black Docker which reports its experiment of docker. It will be followed in 1957 by O country, my beautiful people . In 1960, it publishes a new novel, the wood Ends of God who tells the history of the strike of the railwaymen in 1947-1948 of the Dakar-Niger, the railway line which connects Dakar to Bamako. The history parallel to proceeds Dakar, Thiès and Bamako on bottom of colonialism and fight of the railwaymen to reach the same rights as the French railwaymen.

In 1960, the year of the independence of the French Sudan - which becomes the Mali - and of the Senegal, Ousmane Sembène returns to Africa. He travels through various countries: Mali, the Guinea, the Congo. It starts to think of the cinema, to give another indication of Africa, wanting to show reality through the masks, the dances, the representations.

In 1961, it enters a school of cinema to Moscow. It realizes since 1962 its first short-measuring Borom Saret (the catch cart), followed in 1964 by Niaye .

In 1966 its first feature film leaves, which is also the first feature-length film “négro-African” of the continent, heading the Black one of… (Price Jean-Vigo of the same year). From the start, Ousmane Sembène is placed on the ground of criticism social and political with the history of a young person sénégalaise who leaves his country and his family to come to France to work at a couple which will humiliate it and will treat it as a slave, pushing it until the suicide.

Regarded as one of its masterpieces and crowned by the Price of International Criticism to the Festival of Venice, the mandate (1968) is a sour comedy against the new middle-class sénégalaise, appeared with independence.

In 1979, its film Ceddo is besides interdict in Senegal by the president Léopold Sédar Senghor who will justify officially this censure by a “fault” of orthography: the term ceddo would not be written (according to him) only with one “D”! Obviously, the explanation is whimsical, the Senegalese capacity having in fact in heart of not froisser the religious authorities, in particular Moslem. Sembene reports the revolt at the end of the 17th century of the Ceddos, people with the convictions animists which refuse to convert. It thus tackles with virulence the joint invasions of Catholicism and Islam in West Africa, their role in délitement of the traditional social structures with complicity of the local aristocracy.

In 1988, in spite of the special price of the jury received with the Festival of Venice, it is victim again of the censure, but in France this time, with the Camp of Thiaroye , film homage to the Senegalese Tirailleurs and especially denunciation of an episode overpowering for the French colonial army in Africa, which was held with Thiaroye in 1944.

In 2000, with Faat Kiné , it begins a triptych on “heroism with the daily newspaper”, whose two shutters are devoted to the condition of the African woman (the third, the Brotherhood of the Rats was in preparation). The second, Mooladé (2003), approaches face the very significant topic of the Excision. The film reports the history of four young girls who flee the excision and find refuge near a woman, Collé Ardo (played by the Malian Fatoumata Coulibaly), which offers to them hospitality (the Mooladé ) in spite of the pressures of the village and her husband. Sembene collected on this occasion a new string of rewards in 2004: price of best foreign film decreed by American criticism, price a Certain Glance in Cannes, special price of the jury to the international festival of Marrakech inter alia.

Rewards which come to supplement a list definitely very long, in which one will notice in particular the prestigious price Harvard Film Files decreed by the Université Harvard of Boston in 2001. Sembene fortunately seems to be never dormant in a soft and comfortable self-satisfaction. The untiring one always asserts a cinema militant and goes itself from village in village, traversing Africa, to show its films and to transmit its message.

November 9th, 2006, a few months before its death, it receives, with the residence of the ambassador from France to Dakar, the badges of officer in the order of the Légion of honor of the French Republic.

Patient for several months, it has died at the 84 years age in his residence with Yoff on June 9th, 2007. He is buried with the Moslem cemetery of Yoff.

Catalog of films

1963 : Borom Sarret , short-measuring
1963: the Empire songhay , documentary short-measuring
1964: Niaye
1966 : the Black one of… (scenario writer, realizer)
1968: the Mandate (Mandabi) (scenario writer, realizer)
1970: Taaw , short-measuring
1971: Emitaï (God of the thunder) (scenario writer, realizer)
1974: Xala (scenario writer, realizer)
1976: Ceddo (scenario writer, realizer, actor)
1987: the Camp of Thiaroye (scenario writer, realizer)
1992: Guelwaar
2000 : Faat Kiné
2003 : Moolaadé (scenario writer, realizer)

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